Dear City Council members,
I’m aware that the current partial street closures along Santa Cruz Ave. are in place until early 2022. May I please ask the Council to consider fully reopening the traffic lanes on Santa Cruz Ave between Evelyn St. and Crane St. within the coming weeks?
One lane in that block remains closed for no apparent reason. Galata Bistro restaurant has an improved parklet that doesn’t extend into the traffic lane. Fleet Feet occasionally uses some parking spaces for outdoor shopping. With appropriate safety measures both of those uses could continue if both traffic lanes are opened.
Keeping one lane closed along that block continues to frustrate drivers needing to travel north east on Santa Cruz who then cut through Lot 5 to get to their destination.
Keeping one lane closed along that block causes bicyclists to regularly ride against traffic in the southwest-bound open lane because it’s not easy for them to access the closed lane and because they don’t heed the signs instructing them to use the sidewalk where they must walk their bikes. I’ve experienced this problem twice as a driver along that block, causing me to have to literally stop my car in the southwest-bound traffic lane so as to be sure not to cause an accident with oncoming bicyclists who then slowly and awkwardly negotiate what space remains to either side of my car because I have nowhere to pull out of their way in this situation. In both of those cases this summer the cyclists comprised a small group of school-age children who tend to follow a herd mentality.
Would it not be safer for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers for this block to revert to two-way traffic now? And wouldn’t two-way traffic still allow merchants along that block to deal with Covid restrictions as well as they are currently able to do?
Thank you in advance for considering the problem and the potential solution I'm sharing.
Best regards,
Rich Wipfler
1045 Valparaiso Ave
Menlo Park
